West Seattle traffic-alert update: West Marginal Way reopens after one-car crash

2:54 PM: Heads up if you’re headed to or from Highland Park, among other affected areas: A crash at West Marginal Way SW and Highland Park Way (map) is leading police to close West Marginal at the scene and for at least a few blocks north.

3:18 PM: Our crew at the scene says a car hit a pole and hydrant (though there’s no water flowing from the latter) on the west (southbound) side of the road a short distance north of Highland Park Way. While the car will be towed soon, the pole and resulting suspended wires have to be taken care of by City Light. P.S. Just added a cameraphone photo but because of the sun and tree cover, the pole hit by the car is hard to see – we’ll substitute clearer photos when our crew gets back. The driver was not seriously hurt.

3:35 PM: Via radio, police are saying City Light can’t get there for another hour or so because it’s shift change.

Meantime, the closure is requiring semi-trucks to turn around as well as smaller vehicles, since they are heavy users of this road. So we do advise avoiding the area entirely TFN.

4:01 PM: Substituted a clearer photo. West Marginal at that spot is still closed off, be forewarned.

5:20 PM: Open both ways, but City Light repair crew has outside southbound lane blocked.

Tricky – the crash is just north of the HP/West Marginal intersection so I believe you can get back up the hill. Checking with our crew. Although if it were me – I would just avoid the area altogether, because sometimes the closure configuration changes for repairs, towing, etc.

We won’t get to go back down and check for an hour or so – so if anyone sees it reopened before then, please advise so your fellow drivers/riders/walkers/etc. know too – we’re monitoring the scanner but even then, we might miss a quick mention “road reopening.” Thanks!

As we warn on our Crime Watch page, you have to watch out for the terminology in the police auto-tweets. For one, the tweets come out at least half an hour after the incidents. For two, “accident-injuries includes hit and run” just means that this is the classification which can include hit and run but does not necessarily mean it was one. This is the only crash this afternoon at that spot, so it’s certainly for that crash, but it wasn’t a hit-run – the driver was there at the scene … TR
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